


Not Pristine

by kikibug13



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Bisexual Character, Bisexuality, Community: queer_fest, F/M, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-01
Updated: 2012-06-01
Packaged: 2017-11-06 12:57:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/419163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/pseuds/kikibug13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky questions his own sexuality. Because times, they are  a-changing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Pristine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the queer_fest prompt _Bucky grew up liking boys and never felt the same towards women until Natasha. Some well-meaning people try to tell him that it was all part of the brainwashing, but the attraction is still there even after Bucky gets his memories back. Bucky struggles to figure out what part of the queer spectrum he falls under._
> 
> Thank you.

The fact that he rarely felt like enjoying himself at all, these days, was no reason to be nasty to people whose fault it definitely wasn't. Like the three young women who accosted him at the bar - he never understood why he would have caught their eye, but, apparently, he had. Maybe there was something attractive in brooding. But the mimicry reflexes, honed long before he was used exclusively for being invisible, kicked in. Turning them down would be remembered. Hurt pride had that effect. 

Flirting back, now that was, in fact, forgettable, if he kept it within reasonable lines, and he always kept it that way, anymore. Back before and during the war, stopping somewhere would have been noticed. Problematic, even. But tomorrow, he would be in another bar, in another city maybe, so it didn't matter if he kept it superficial. Even with their strength in numbers, a stranger keeping things 'safe' made the women easier, too, and when they finally let him bid them good-night, outside, they were laughing, clearly enjoying themselves. 

As such things went, it had been pleasant enough for him to be smiling, too. Even if that started fading from his face before he'd turned the corner. 

"They're not what you'd be shopping for, anyway, are they." The voice that came from _behind_ the corner was familiar, but between the unexpectedness of hearing and the words, Bucky's heart still leaped up into his throat for a moment. He gave himself three seconds to calm down, and when he looked and spoke, his voice bore no sign of that. 

"Colonel." 

Fury's mouth twitched up - Bucky could see the flash of his teeth even in the faint light out here. "It was never the ladies for you." 

He made an effort to unclench his teeth. This was _not_ a subject he wanted to discuss. "After all this time," _and all the effort I went through to contact you_ , he didn't add, "it's _this_ you want to discuss?" The incredulity was probably not going to fool Fury, but he had to get credit for trying.

"It just occurred to me, is all. You always _seemed_ after the lasses, but all you had eyes for were the lads. 'cept you never did anything about that." Bucky could feel the eye on him... and didn't look up to meet it. "Be that as it may," the humor didn't _help_ , damn it, Fury, "I hear you've been looking for a job." 

At least he changed the subject. None to soon, judging by the rolling in his guts. Trying to beat up Fury wasn't going to be a good call. In any way possible. He didn't have all that many ties left, not with the proper side of things, anymore. Except for Steve, and he wasn't... he couldn't go to him, not with the kind of baggage he was carrying now. And he needed something to do before he went nuts, thinking about it all. More nuts. Whatever. 

"I am." 

"You've grown up."

"Not enough."

"And too much, too."

"Can't help that. You looking for operatives, now that you're out of your pretty thing in the sky?" 

"As a matter of fact, I am." 

"You need me to show what I can or something?"

"Not tonight. I know your stats - the Cube sent your file to Steve, you know, and he turned it in to me," no, he wasn't going to show Fury just what kind of a chill that sent through him, "and your jobs, and I know enough of the few glimpses that've been caught of you since that run-in to not need an audition." 

"Good." 

"I do want to know if you really think you can do this again."

And _this_ was the real question. 

"Beats not doing anything. Sir."

"Cut the crap." 

"I'm not shitting you. Sitting on my hands is making it all--" 

"Run in your head, make your skin crawl, and wonder if there's any use tryin' anything else. I meant the sir." 

Bucky snorted. "You should've treasured it while it lasted. I don't try to do the respect thing all that often or for all that long."

"I'd have been worried, otherwise." 

He didn't chuckle, but he felt like doing it. It was a rare thing. But, damn, it felt good to be back working with people who were prepared - willing, _wanting_ \- to deal with him. Not the mold they'd tried stuffing him into. Not the non-entity that the Winter Soldier tried and never quite succeeded in being. Him. "So... got a job for me?"

"Aye." Fury held up a key. "You'll find the file there. And the means to contact me, if there's a need. I'll know if you're done." 

Bucky didn't hesitate in reaching for that key. Finding where it was for was part of the job, too, he'd imagine. Maybe there wasn't going to be an audition, but there'd definitely be a trial period. 

Good. 

He'd killed enough people out in the field. Not putting any more in danger was something he could get behind. 

He saluted with two fingers, and turned to go. Fury didn't call him back. 

 

Bucky had the file in his hands and was back in his dingy hotel room before he even let himself think on the man's conversation opener. 

Fury hadn't been wrong. Bucky never would have told him, but he hadn't been _wrong_. At this point, though, not entirely right, either, and it was all such a mess that he didn't want to talk about it at all. Hell, he didn't wanna _think_ about it, either. But Fury, damn the man, had put the thought in his mind, and he couldn't get rid of it, now.

Fine. 

Bucky flopped on the bed, the too-loud creak as it took his increased weight reassuring, clasped his hands behind his head, and made himself remember.

All the guys at Lehigh were into girls. Who were not there and everyone seemed constantly frustrated. The solution had looked so very simple to _him_... but even the hint of that had led to a long talk with his father. That it was wrong, and it was bad, and he shouldn't even think of it.

Bucky tried. After his father died, he tried really damned hard. He learned how to court them, how to entertain them, even how to enjoy their company, that way. He learned how to take every step of that dance. Except one.

Wanting it.

It was always the guys for him. And he never could let that be known. Because it was bad, and because it was wrong, and because he shouldn't. (Except, now it wasn't, was it?)

Now it wasn't quite that, and he couldn't go out and pick a bar, one of a number, and go there and pick a guy up as easily as he could've picked the three women earlier, and they could fuck each other into the kind of happy oblivion that he'd craved in cramped quarters where Toro had been so close, and yet unreachably far, or when he'd been down with fever just before he turned seventeen and Steve had quietly slipped into his bed and held him until his shivering eased. He'd clung to Steve, that night. Like he'd belonged. Like to his sick teenage mind, everything could be all right. Hell, it might have been. The way things were now, well, it was _Steve_. If anyone could have accepted shit from him, even if it was wrong, that would be Steve fucking Rogers, and if he kept thinking along these lines, he'd do something bad. Something that he would regret. 

That point would inevitably come, of course. That much he knew. But if _he_ could see it coming, well, it had to be avoidable, right? 

He fucking _hated_ Fury, right now. Not nearly as much as he hated himself, but he did. 

This was all wasting time, anyway. He had work to do. Bucky got up, splashed some cold water on his face and shoulders, and opened the file, spreading the contents on the bed. (No, it didn't make him think of that one last time with _her_. Not too much, anyway.)

Two hours later, he was swearing under his breath, digging through the contents for the communication section. Phone, good. E-mail, better. With instructions. Encryption for the actual content. Have to include inconspicuous text over it, it'd be used in the algorithm to encrypt and decrypt. Good. 

The actual message, with an attached scan of the two pages in question, was: 

_Don't expect me to do things if you feed me bad data._

The cover-up message was,

_Hey Nel,_

_Thought on what you said earlier... but you wouldn't know about that time and that one amazing woman..._

He set the computer to wake him up if an answer came and did the sleeping thing. Even if he didn't get the correction, he was moving out after dawn. He'd check for answer later. 

The reply came four minutes after he woke up. He was going to leave the clothes and shoes he'd worn tonight - last night - here, and have himself scanned for tracker first chance. Last thing he wanted was the signal hijacked; Fury trailing him was only about fourth on the list. 

_Shit, man, the kid's learned to think. Good to know. Correction included._

And, on top of that, _u wernt in ur rite mind._

... did people really type like that? Not that it mattered. 

He glimpsed at the attached files and shot only, _Never mind, forget it. You wouldn't understand, anyway._

And he wouldn't.

Not even Nick Fury had the capacity to comprehend... something like this. Years upon years of the very fabric of his being, trying to remember. To escape this state between the life and the death he'd had. How his eyes had been for men again, even if most of the time he kept finding reasons to push back even the possibilities. The cold ways in which he'd been looked at when the superiors registered his preferences. 

And then Natalia. 

Wanting her, wanting to be with her, had been as forbidden as wanting men. She could not belong to him. Desiring her was bad, and it was wrong, and, in the end, he _had_ been punished, because none of that had mattered. Bucky's hand - the right one - tightened around the wheel, thumb rubbing against his index and middle fingers as though he could still feel a strand of red hair between them. 

There was only the leather of the glove. 

His eyes weren't stinging, either. 

He hit the gas. There was work to do, and none of this mattered, anyway. Natalia, if she was even alive - this job was not a high survival rate one, even for one as exquisitely good as her - was probably old. Putting her into the position of a subject of desire would be humiliating. And that wasn't something to do to her. Not... not ever. 

Fury had been wrong, though. It wasn't only the messing up they'd done with his mind. It hadn't changed the rest... and then, there'd been Gretchen. That hadn't been nowhere near as strong as with Natalia - a little spark, a candle's flame compared to a forest wildfire - but it had been real, too. 

God, it had all been so long ago. And not nearly long enough. 

_Focus on your job, pal._ It was almost a comfort to imagine Steve's voice snapping him out of woolgathering, he could fall into that even while he was flying Namor's craft. 

Almost. 

He put the questions to rest. Mostly. He'd see about finding a guy to bed. Get the frustration out. After a job or something. Maybe. And he'd hope he didn't call him by another name, when reason burned.

 

A year or so later, her perfect kick, then perfect kiss, changed it all again. Once more, when life was drained of reasons, she made it just acceptable to keep on living. Keep on fighting. Stop feel like he was making excuses to not end it. 

 

It was later yet, when he was on enforced bedrest - enforced enough that even his reading materials were limited to fiction only, not even newspapers - that he found it. A redhead's quick snap after a comment upon her new husband's sexuality. 

_**Was** bisexual. Now he's monogamous._

James Buchanan Barnes laughed hard enough that a nurse came in to check his apparatuses and ask him to please calm down. 

The simple line was like written about him... except it was also so _wrong_. Not that he doubted that Nat knew, or that she would be exactly as accepting of the fact. It was the making it sound so easy, so natural. Acceptable. And he never had been... that. Or maybe he just hadn't been accept _ed_. Other than by a very few, and most of them never knew about this part of things because he never hd the guts to tell them. Maybe he should work on that.

Bisexual. So that was what the kids called it. 

He wasn't going to say no to the monogamous part, either.


End file.
